Relay with reed contacts

ABSTRACT

1,045,441. Electromagnetic relays. STANDARD TELEPHONES &amp; CABLES Ltd. Sept. 14, 1964 [Sept. 14, 1963], No. 37423/64. Heading H2B. A polarized electromagnetic relay in which the armature or armatures may be stable in one or both of its end of travel positions has one or more sealed magnetic contact devices with a ball-shaped contact armature which bridges fixed pairs of contact rods in one or both of said positions. In Fig. la the permanent magnet 7 is mounted between two contact devices 1 surrounded by a coil 8 and biases the armature contacts 6 to bridge an upper contact pair 2, 3. A second magnet may be mounted below the first (Fig. 2a, not shown) so that the armatures are bi-stable, as in Fig. 4 in which annular permanent magnets 10, 11 are mounted outside the coil 8&lt;SP&gt;1&lt;/SP&gt;. Rod-shaped permanent magnets may lie alongside the coil (Figs. 5a and 6a, not shown) or annular magnets 14, 15 (Fig. 8b) may surround a number of contact devices 1 around an operating coil.

Aug. 30, 1966 e. WESSEL RELAY WITH REED CONTACTS 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Sept. 2, 1964 Fig. la

n If 4 Aug. 30, 1966 cs. WESSEL RELAY WITH REED CONTACTS 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Sept. 2, 1964 Fig.6b

Fig.5b

United States Patent 3,270,302 RELAY WITH REED CONTACTS Gerhard Wessel, Kornwestheim, Germany, assignor to International Standard Electric Corporation, New York,

.Y., a corporation of Delaware Filed Sept. 2, 1964, Ser. No. 393,923 Claims priority, application Germany, Sept. 14, 1963, St 16,372 3 Claims. '(Cl. 335-154) The innovation relates to a relay with reed contacts in which within the tube a ball is used as freely moving armature and in which the reed contacts are arranged within a coil and, in addition to this electromagnetic field, one or several permanent magnets influence the reed contact.

There are electromagnetic relays with a freely moving armature in the air gap of the relay, preferably ballshaped armatures, known which is under the influence of at least one permanent magnet. The ferro-magnetic circuit of such a relay consists of two straight rods, pref erably with round profile, arranged in series, and which limit with their facing ends the air gap. The permanent magnet or magnets are shaped as flat components with preferably rectangular section and arranged in a plane parallel to said plane in which the rods are located. This conventional arrangement of reed contact relays with a ball-type armature, however, is very expensive and difficult in production, particularly because in such a relay only always one contact element is melted into the front sides of the reed tube, a magnetically conductive, essentially annular shaped component, electrically insulated, must protrude from one side into the metallic, non-mag netic tube, in order to obtain contact making between this component and one contact element and the component and the other contact element. Such an arrangement, however, is extremely difficult for manufacturing if not impossible at all.

The object of the innovation is to avoid these difliculties in production for the designs known and to create, using a reed contact in which on either front side two contact elements are melted in, a relay with a freely movable balltype armature which warrants for said ball-type armature a proper single-sided or double-sided resting position at the respective contact elements. According to the innovation this is achieved in that, when using a permanent magnet, arranged between two reed contacts in such a way, that for the freely movable ball-type armature a preferred single-sided resting position on the contact elements of the reed contact or the reed contacts is formed which are located next to the permanent magnet, and that, when using two permanent magnets, said permanent magnets are poled in such a way that a double-sided resting position of the ball-type armature on .the contact elements of the reed contact or the reed contacts is warranted, depending on the polarization obtained by the excitation of the coil.

The relay according to the innovation shows the advantage that it can be easily made of simple means and requires only little space. The ball-type armatures themselves have a defined arrangement in such a relay and it is possible in a relay with one contact to use it as a break or make contact or, at through-connection of one contact element in one front side with a contact element of the other front side, whereby the through-connection can be made outside the reed tube to use the relay as changeover relay, whereby in any case it is warranted that the break-side has opened before the make-side closes due to the ball-type armature.

The innovation is now described with the aid of the accompanying drawings, wherein:

3,270,302 Patented August 30, 1966 FIG. la shows a relay with two reed contacts and one permanent magnet, in a longitudinal section of the reed contacts and with enlarged scale;

FIG. lb shows the relay according to FIG. 1a, seen from one front side;

FIG. 2a shows a relay with two reed contacts and two permanent magnets, representing the longitudinal section of the reed contacts;

FIG. 2b shows the relay according to FIG. 2a, seen from the front side;

FIG. 3a shows a relay with one reed contact and one annular manget, in longitudinal section of the reed contact;

FIG. 3b shows a relay according to FIG. 3a, seen from a front side;

FIG. 4 shows a relay with one reed contact and two annular magnets, in longitudinal section;

FIG. 5a shows a relay with four reed contacts and one rodtype magnet, in longitudinal section;

FIG. 5b shows the relay according to FIG. 5a, seen from the front side;

FIG. 6a shows a relay with three reed contacts and two rod-type mangets in longitudinal section;

FIG. 6b shows the relay according to FIG. 6a, seen from the front side,

FIG. 7a shows a relay with twelve reed contacts arranged in a circle round the relay coil and one annular magnet, in the cross-section of the reed contacts;

FIG. 7b shows the relay according to FIG. 7a seen from the front side;

FIG. 8a shows a relay with twelve reed contacts arranged in a circle round the coil and two annular magnets in longitudinal section of the reed contacts; and

FIG. 8b shows the relay according to FIG. 8a, seen from a front side.

In FIG. 1 and the other figures a reed contact is indicated by 1, having on one front side two contact elements 2 and 3, and on the other front side also two contact elements 4 and 5 melted into the reed tube and between the ends of the contact elements protruding into the tube 1 a freely movable ball-type armature 6. This reed contact 1 shows four contact elements of which two e.g. 2 and 4 or 3 and 5 are connected outside the reed tube by wiring so that the contact 1 represents a changeover contact. The wiring outside the reed tube can also be omitted so that the contact 1 is either a break-contact or a makecontact or is a make/break contact. A permanent magnet 7 is arranged between both reed contacts 1 which is a rod-type magnet as shown in FIGS. la and 1b, with rectangular cross-section or, as shown in FIG. 2b, as a rod-type magnet with annular cross-section or of cylindrical shape. Both reed contacts 1 and the permanent magnet 7 poled in the longitudinal direction and therefore having the position between the reed contacts 1 in such a way that the ball-type armature 6 take a preferred, single-sided resting position when not operated, are encircled by a common coil 8.

FIG. 1b shows the relay according to FIG. 1a seen from the front side.

FIG. 2a shows a relay as represented in FIG. 10, however, another rod-type magnet 9 is added which is poled in the opposite direction compared with rod-type mag net 7. By this opposite polarization a double-sided resting position of the ball-type armature 6 at the contact elements 2 and 3 results, depending on the excitation of coil 8, or at the contact elements 4 and 5, respectively.

FIG. 2b shows the relay according to FIG. 2a from the front side.

FIG. 3a shows another example of a relay in which only one reed contact 1 is inserted within a coil 8' and outside said coil an annular magnet 10 is arranged in such a way that the ball-type armature 6 takes a single-sided resting position at the contact elements 4 and 5.

FIG. 3b shows the relay according to FIG. 3a from the front side.

FIG. 4 shows a relay as described in FIG. 30, however, a second annular magnet 11 is added to the annular magnet 10, said annular magnet 11 is poled opposite to the annular magnet 10. This results, exactly as shown in the example in FIG. 2a, in a double-sided resting position of the ball-type armature 6, depending on the excitation of the coil 8'.

FIG. 5a shows a relay with four reed contacts 1, arranged wit-hin a coil 16 and a permanent magnet 12 outside said coil 16, extending over the entire width of said coil. This type of relay again results in a single-sided resting position of the ball-type armatures 6 of the reed contact 1 at the contact elements 4 and 5.

FIG. 5b shows the relay according to front side.

FIG. 6a shows a relay as described in FIG. 5a, however, only three reed contacts 1 are accommodated inside a coil 16', and in addition to the permanent magnet 12 arranged outside said coil another permanent manget 13, rod-shaped, is provided, poled opposite to the permanent magnet 12. By this arrangement again a double-sided resting position of the ball-type armature 6 results, either at the contact elements 2 and 3 or at the contact elements 4 and 5, depending on the previous excitation of coil 16.

FIG. 6b shows the relay according to FIG. 6a from the front side.

FIG. 7a shows another example of a relay in which twelve reed contacts 1 are arranged in a circle around the coil 17. Said coil 17 shows a magnetizable core 18 which can have the shape of a screw and which keeps the plates 19 and 20 of magnetizable material on both front sides of the coil. These plates 19 and 20 serve as flux path. An annular magnet 14 is arranged around the twelve reed contacts which takes such a position towards the individual ball-type armatures 6 of the twelve reed contacts 1 that the ball-type armature 6 of all twelve reed contacts 1 takes a single-sided resting position at the contact elements 4 and 5.

FIG. 7b shows the relay the front.

FIG. 8a shows a similar construction as the relay in FIG. 7a, but with two annular magnets 14 and 15 around the twelve reed contacts 1, said magnets having an oppositely directed polarization so that for the individual ball-type armatures 6 of the twelve reed contacts 1 a double-sided resting position results, depending on the excitation of coil 17, either on the contact elements 2 and 3 or on the contact elements 4 and 5.

FIG. 8b shows the relay according to FIG. 811 from the front side.

What is claimed is:

1. A relay comprising:

a container having a substantially cylindrical wall closed at both ends,

reeds aligned along the central axis of the cylindrical wall for conducting electrical current,

said reeds being positioned with respect to said container to extend through the ends of the container FIG. 5a from the described in FIG. 7a from and to each have a terminal outside one end of the container and a separate terminal contact within the container,

a ball shaped movable armature within said container proportioned to be movable along said central axis within the cylindrical wall, and to bridge a gap across two terminal contacts associated with reeds extending through one end of said container,

said ball shaped movable armature being capable, by bridging said gap, of completing an electrical circuit through said contacts,

a cylindrical coil having a substantially cylindrical outer edge aligned coaxially to said central axis for generating an electromagnetic field to pass through said armature and to control the position of said armature in accordance with the polarity of said field,

a permanent magnet positioned outside the cylindrical outer edge of said cylindrical coil and oriented to have an axis through its poles parallel to said central axis,

said permanent magnet producing a permanent magnetic field coextensive, in the vicinity of the armature, with the electromagnetic field,

said permanent magnetic field being poled to aid the electromagnetic field in one orientation and to oppose it when the direction of the electromagnetic field is reversed,

said permanent magnetic field causing the armatureto remain closed across two recently closed terminal contacts in the absence of an electromagnetic field, and

said permanent magnet permitting said armature to move along the central axis away from contact with said two terminal contacts in the presence of an electromagnetic field of a polarity opposing that of the permanent magnet.

2. A relay substantially as claimed in claim 1 in which the permanent magnet is replaced by a pair of permanent magnets poled to maintain the armature in either of two positions once a selection between the two positions has been made.

3. A relay substantially as claimed in claim 1, in which the permanent magnet is annular and is positioned around the cylindrical outer edge of the cylindrical coil so that an axis through the center of the permanent magnet will coincide with the central axis.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,794,178 5/ 1957 Reynolds 20087 2,907,846 10/1959 Wilhelm ZOO-87 3,030,468 4/ 1962 Donceel et al 20087 3,103,562 9/1963 Di Noia 20087 3,151,227 9/1964 Ewart 20087 OTHER REFERENCES Thiele et a1: 1,116,815, November 9, 1961, German application.

BERNARD A. GILHEANY, Primary Examiner. B. DOBECK, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A RELAY COMPRISING: A CONTAINER HAVING A SUBSTANTIALLY CYLINDRICAL WALL CLOSED AT BOTH ENDS, REEDS ALIGNED ALONG THE CENTRAL AXIS OF THE CYLINDRICAL WALL FOR CONDUCTING ELECTRICAL CURRENT, SAID REEDS BEING POSITIONED WITH RESPECT TO SAID CONTAINER TO EXTEND THROUGH THE ENDS OF THE CONTAINER AND TO EACH HAVE A TERMINAL OUTSIDE ONE END OF THE CONTAINER AND A SEPARATE TERMINAL CONTACT WITHIN THE CONTAINER, A BALL SHAPED MOVABLE ARMATURE WITHIN SAID CONTAINER PROPORTIONED TO BE MOVABLE ALONG SAID CENTRAL AXIS WITHIN THE CYLINDRICAL WALL, AND TO BRIDGE A GAP ACROSS TWO TERMINAL CONSTACTS ASSOCIATED WITH REEDS EXTENDING THROUGH ONE END OF SAID CONTAINER, SAID BALL SHAPED MOVABLE ARMATURE BEING CAPABLE, BY BRIDGING SAID GAP, OF COMPLETING AN ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT THROUGH SAID CONTACTS, A CYLINDRICAL COIL HAVING A SUBSTANTIALLY CYLINDRICAL OUTER EDGE ALIGNED COAXIALLY TO SAID CENTRAL AXIS FOR GENERATING AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD TO PASS THROUGH SAID ARMATURE AND TO CONTROL THE POSITION OF SAID ARMATURE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE POLARITY OF SAID FIELD, A PERMANENT MAGNET POSITIONED OUTSIDE THE CYLINDRICAL OUTER EDGE OF SAID CYLINDRICAL COIL AND ORIENTED TO HAVE AN AXIS THROUGH ITS POLES PARALLEL TO SAID CENTRAL AXIS, SAID PERMANENT MAGNET PRODUCING A PERMANENT MAGNETIC FIELD COEXTENSIVE, IN THE VICINITY OF THE ARMATURE, WITH THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD, SAID PERMANENT MAGNETIC FIELD BEING POLED TO AID THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD IN ONE ORIENTATION AND TO OPPOSE IT WHEN THE DIRECTION OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD IS REVERSED, SAID PERMANENT MAGNETIC FIELD CAUSING THE ARMATURE TO REMAIN CLOSED ACROSS TWO RECENTLY CLOSED TERMINAL CONTACTS IN THE ABSENCE OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD, AND SAID PERMANENT MAGNET PERMITTING SAID ARMATURE TO MOVE ALONG THE CENTRAL AXIS AWAY FROM CONTACT WITH SAID TWO TERMINAL CONTACTS IN THE PRESENCE OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD OF A POLARITY OPPOSING THAT OF THE PERMANENT MAGNET. 